After a miserable November and December I managed to have my 2nd biggest month ever. My 3 biggest cashes were:

1) 4th in a ftp 26/28k for 2.3k
2) 1st in a stars 9.90 360 max for $810
3) 7th in a stars $33/10k for $770

I plugged a few leaks that I found in December when I was in the midst of a 100 buy in downswing. I got really unlucky to not have a monster month as I was really unlucky to not win the 28k and got super unlucky in some deep runs in some 55s and a 75. My goal for the year was to make a minimum of 10k. I managed to make 2.4k in January so I'm about 1/4 of the way there just one month in. I've gotten to a point that even at a $35 abi I make more hourly playing poker then I do at my job. Which inevitably makes draggin my ass to work so much harder.

At work things are not lookin so good. About 10% of the work force will be laid off in the next couple of weeks. Thankfully for me I can probably survive 2 lay off cuts. To help save money work has offered to allow anyone to have a day off until the end of Feb. unpaid. My thought was that I was going to take at least a couple of weeks off and grind. Well that plan backfired as I hurt my back trying to get back into shape. It's pretty hard to grind when your back is stiff, sore, and just screaming with pain.

My mission for the year is to hopefully build a roll and play at a high enough level so that I can give work the big middle finger and try playing poker for awhile. If I don't make 10k this year I'm going to put poker on the back burner and spend more time working out and brushing up on my computer programming skills and find myself a job with better hours.

Here is a post I made in a forum regarding poker podcasts. It's a post I made about 3 months iirc after an initial podcast post.


I figure it's time to update. For me good stategy content especially mtt strategy is what I like best in a podcast so here's my new rankings. There are some new shows since the last ranking and some shows that were new to me at the time that have either gotten better or I had more of a chance to listen to them and thus enjoy them. These shows have been around for a little while so I'll rank them. There are a couple of shows that started in the last 2 weeks that I'll add at the bottom.

1: All Strategy: This has Daniel Negreanu and ZeeJustin hosted by Scott Huff. This show is entirely strategy mostly about mtts. This is an excellent excellent show. It is basically what the name implies, it's all about strategy.

2: Two Plus Two pokercast - Hosted by Adam Schwartz and Mike Johnson. Adam is/was a mid/high stakes online player and really knows his stuff, Mike owns his own business(I think) and plays the part of the casual player. Both guys keep up on gossip and what happens on the 2p2 forum. I love that the hosts are intelligent and have nice chemistry, there's nothing worse then hosts that talk over each other or have seconds of silence or awkward conversation's where the hosts aren't on the same page. The show in a nutshell is a mix of gossip, forum static, hand advice, and poker player interviews.

Pros: hosts have great chemistry, the show is funny, the interviews are great, audio quality is great

Cons: There aren't enough shows only one per week

3: Bernard Lee Poker Show, Bernard has gotten better with time and provides excellent interviews and a sneak peak into a pro mtt players life.

4: Wisehand Poker: The audio has gotten much better and Gary has also improved his job as a podcast host.

5: Big Poker Sundays: I listened to this just to hear Bob rip on people. Unfortunately he's replaced by Shaniac. Shaniac does a good job but is no where near as good as Bob. It seems like Shane is always trying to use big words in sentences that seem forced. It's still a pretty decent show.

From here I think the quality really drops off.

6: Pokerroad Radio - Hosted by Ali Nejad, Gavin Smith, and Joe Sebok. Joe and Gavin are live mtt players that travel the circuit. Ali is a poker announcer for shows like the NBC Heads Up Championship, Poker After Dark, and a couple other shows on tv/internet. This show was originally CardPlayers "The Circuit" with Scott Huff as the host then Pokerwire radio with Joe Stapleton as the host. Ali is the 4th host and does a decent job but is nowhere near as good/funny as Stapleton and Huff. Basically the show consists of recent poker news, a break down of Joe or Gavin's day on the felt, and an interview with someone in the poker world. The show has gotten a lot better of late. Gavin has taken a prop bet that he can stay sober until sometime in November, a sober Gavin that actually says something in the poker podcast is awesome the normal drunk/hung over Gavin that says nothing during the whole show sucks. You won't get much good strategy unless Gavin is sober as Joe either doesn't really understand the inner workings of playing mtt poker or he doesn't explain it well. I really love the show when gobbo and court harrington fill in for gavin and joe. It's soooo much better.

Pros: Gavin is a great host when sober, you get an idea of what life is like on the circuit, occasionally Ali is funny and not completely annoying

Cons: Ali can straight up get on your nerves, he sounds like the biggest fake wannabe there ever was (check out the Paul Darden interview and watch how he talks during the interview, fucking hilarious), Gavin will probably resort to being drunk and useless for the show after his prop bet is done, Joe holds the show back he's got a whiney voice and really adds nothing to the show..

7: Killer Poker Analysis: This show has grown on me. How good the show is depends on what type of strategy the host who's name fails me now goes over. He answers alot of stupid stupid questions from the mouth breather's that listen to Rounders Radio. Occasionally the content is amazing.

8: ESPN the poker edge. This show has grown on me a bit. More Adam Feldman please. The show has gotten better since they are doing a weekly show now.

9: Pocket 5s Podcast - Hosted by David Hubar and Adam Small. This podcast is mostly about online mtts, ldo this is p5s. There is a little bit of poker news followed by one or two interviews usually an online mtt pro.

Pros: The interviews are often fairly good.

Cons: The interviews are very short usually 10-20 minutes at most. David Hubar as a dry, boring, monotone, emotionless voice.

10: Pumped on Poker. It's amazing how one thing can really fuck up a show. They have 2 hosts who are calling in and constantly talk over each other. The first 5 minutes are excrutiating as these guys try to have a convo where they don't talk over each other. The interviews are ok if you want to call them that. I call the interviews dick sucking since the interviewee is obv god since he/she won or got deep in an mtt. There are also periods in the interview where the 2nd host who doesn't say much adds to the mayhem and confusion as the interviewee and the hosts talk over each other and try to figure out what the fuck everyone is saying. The obvious solution is to get rid of the host that doesn't say much.

Other shows not mentioned:

Keep Flopping Aces-Fell out of my top 10. Although the host asks very good questions he is a horrible horrible horrible interviewer. He constantly talks over his guest on the phone and there's tons of awkward dead air. The guests usually suck too.

Ante Up-Basically like I've said before the show is done by 2 donks. It's amazing that they do any kind of hand analysis. If they focused on just interviews and poker news they'd make my top 10. Unfortunately when you don't know how to play poker and 1/3 of your show is analysis your podcast is gonna suck.

The Ultimate Poker Show. This is hosted by PokerHo and Annie Duke. No one should have to listen to Annie talk over everyone about how she got her kids ready for school. The show is a crapfest so far. Essentially it's a UB propaganda show.

The Tournament Pwnage Hour. This show has a shot at being the best. It's hosted by an online mtt pro and the show is completely dedicated to online mtt strategy. Obv if they keep this show going, just from listening to the first show it will be at the top. The host interviews other online mtt pros.

Perspective's Now. This show is all about the online gambling economy and regulation. It's a nice weekly show to keep you up to date on online poker.

Poker Talk Beyond the Book. The show is really bad for players who are past being a novice. Essentially it's droolers complaining about bad beats in free rolls or some moron calling to brag about winning $30 in a $25nl cash game.

Cash Plays. Sadly this show is no longer and was easily one of my all time favorites. Bart is moving on and will host a podcast with DeucesCracked in January. Supposedly that show should be similar to Cash Plays.

The Joe Average Poker Show. This began again after a long lay over as a weekly podcast. The main host sounds like a fat guy that just ate a large pizza, tub of ice cream, and a bucket of hot wings and just about had a stroke after lifting some heavy boxes. The guy has no clue about poker news/gossip nor can he finish one sentence before slurring or completely messing up a word. The woman "pro" seems to have no clue what she's talking about when it comes to strategy but somehow wins almost every week...yeah right. The guy "pro" seems to know what he's talking about. Overall the show is fairly enjoyable but is more for the novice or beginner.

In Itunes you can search for said shows. If you can't find them they'll be under rounders radio.

Yep basically December was a repeat of November losing roughly 50 avg. buy ins. Over and over I lost big pots with way the best of it or a coin flip in crucial situations, but really that's tournament poker. You can only work on your mistakes. Bemoaning the fact that you got it in as a 95% favorite on the turn and lost really doesn't do anything but lead to negative thoughts, which in turn can effect your play.

I had taken about 12 consecutive days off work to grind in December then a couple of days this month. I didn't grind much in December mostly to running bad. It's just not that much fun when you're in the midst of a 100 buy in downswing.

January started out fairly disappointing as I bubbled the UB $25/8k when my AdTd< 77 on a T7d6dA board for a monster cl. I was 2/10 at the time and of course ran into the a cooler vs the only guy who could bust me. Everyone else at the table could only bring me down to 20bbs. I don't think there's anything worse in mtt poker then having a really bad run then in your latest mtt you get very lucky and play well just to get coolered to bubble the ft.

2 sessions later I finished 4th in the ftp $26/28k for 2.3k which was much needed. Everything went very well until the ft where I got coolered 2x and lost one too many 60/40s but I'm not complaining after my long downswing. I'm very optimistic starting a new year. In 2008 I started with a 1.7k bank roll and despite running like shit the last 2.5 months managed to finish with a 5.2k roll. Certainly I didn't make huge money but surely making $7/hr while enjoying your hobby can't be a bad thing. Last year my goal was to have a 10k bank roll which meant I had to make 8.3k, I fell well short of that goal. My goal for this year is to make 10k and I think the odds of me making 15k+ this year are much better then even money.

Best of luck in 2009 guys!!!

This was really the tale of 2 completely different months. After having record profit months in August and September I followed up with another record month in October. October was looking really gruesome as I had almost zero cashes then I had a session where I got deep in 3 mtts. I finished in the top 30 of a 33/10k for around a $100 cash. I finished 2nd in a stars 16.50 for $950 and 6th in a stars 55/70k for 3k. I feel like I left alot of money on the table as I didn’t tighten up with my opening range nor did I loosen up my 4 betting range in teh 70k and just straight up played way too laggy. Part of the reason is the $16.50 ft took forever, especially when we were 3 handed. I was pretty unlucky to finish 2nd. I got it in vs the other good player and lost to a 3 outer and the bad player who was left kept donking off most of his stack then getting lucky. HU vs the good player I just didn’t tighten up. As a whole I should’ve tightened up around the ft bubble of the 70k as the field was very soft at the ft.

November was like October except I had no cashes over $104. After such a good October I moved up my average buy in and had my worse month ever. Not much to say other then I ran like dogshit. I reviewed my play and I’ve studied some videos and have shored up a couple of leaks such as not stealing enough in lp and not cbetting often enough when I steal and miss the flop in position. I’ve also stopped restealing as often. Obv I’ll still find spots to resteal but why put a 25bb stack at risk when you can steal winning small pots with little risk of losing your stack or get a chance to get your stack in with way the best of it.

More blogs to come in the next week.

September was my most profitable month ever. After grinding and grinding and studying I finally got my 2nd 4 figure score and my best cash when I took down the ftp Daily Double A for $2200. It was a sort of weird mtt, I didn't get a lot of good starting hands. When I did get a hand I won about the maximum. The big pots that I won included limping pretty deep 1.5 hrs into the mtt with 44, flopped a set and more then doubled up vs a guy who called my flop raise with K high then gave me 2 streets of value when he turned a K.

The next really big pot I won was with JJ where I got 3 callers, Qxx flop was checked around, I called a turn bet against 99 and won at showdown. A bit late in the mtt iir it was close to just in the money I raised AK with 30bbs, an unknown 3 bet me and I shipped vs AA and sucked out. With around 17 players left a guy mr utg got 3 callers, I shipped 18bbs w/AA utg snapcalled with KK and I won a huge pot. 3 handed the button raised, sb called, I held AA for the 2nd time in the mtt and made a pot sized raise. The button folded and the sb reshipped with KK and gg him.

This win was huge for me as now I have the roll to play up to $75 mtts if I want. The biggest benefit of having a bigger roll is the amount of choices I have to play mtts. For now almost any time I play I can find at least 6 mtts that I'm rolled for.

So Hooray for upswings!!!